Overview:

There were a number of highlights. The number of papers referencing the CIDOC CRM demonstrates the impact and uptake of this robust ontology within the cultural heritage sector. With increased uptake and demonstrable use cases, this can only snowball and bring the benefits so many people have discussed over the past ten years and more. Dominic Oldman and Sebastian Rahtz’s paper in particular set the scene here, talking about experiences with the CLAROS and ResearchSpace projects.

Discussion of the PeriodO project was particularly striking. The approach to taken to provide a Linked Data resource of period assertions is a very neat solution to the problem of diverse views of archaeological periods and the inclusion of a spatial component promises to make for an incredibly powerful resource. I look forward to making use of this in my research.

There was significant diversity in the subject matters of presentations, ranging from 3D models to coins to archaeological deposits, features, sites and monuments. It was particularly pleasing to note there is now a significant group of researchers working with ontologies, providing an active community for ideas to be discussed within and ideas mooted and developed. It is a privilege to be a part of this. With groups such as the ARIADNE Linked Data SIG and the CAA Semantic SIG, there are also forums within which we can collaborate and communicate.